Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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DOC said:
"Supporters of the passage's authenticity, however, counter that Christians would not promote their faith as a "most mischievous superstition", or a "source of the evil" or as something "hideous and shameful", though "there arose a feeling of compassion" toward the Christians. The criterion of embarrassment suggests authenticity, and there is no historical or archaeological evidence to support the argument that a scribe may have introduced the passage into the text.[24][25]"
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That's a load of hogwash.

The bolded section is disproved by ANY episode of the Jerry Springer show.
 
zooterkin said:
Since Tacitus was clearly not alive at the time of Pilate and Tiberius, for his account to have any significance, you would have to show that it was based on an independent source and not just what he was told by Christians (or by others who had got the story from Christians). Can you do that?
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That goes for the Testimonium Flavius as well. He also wrote what was just tradition if it's not an outright interpolation.
 
DOC said:
So then I would assume you believe Sir Issac Newton should have used the word imply instead of infer below:

"...I would now add that the hypothesis of matter being at first evenly spread through the heavens, is, in my opinion, inconsistent with the hypothesis of innate gravity (today a scientific law) without a supernatural power to reconcile them, and therefore it infers a Deity..."
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Well, there are at least two possibilities:

1) The use of the word hypothesis is a sort of symbol for the thought process which led to the formation of the hypothesis, in which case the word infer is perfectly correct, in this context.

2) As has been pointed out to you (I believe several times specifically about Sir Isaac Newton), expertise in one area doesn't mean a person knows a damn thing about any other areas. So, yes, Sir Isaac might quite well write something incorrectly. Having been a great mathematician doesn't guarantee he was a great writer.

I've just come up with a third possibility:
3) The meanings of words change over time - nearly 400 years ago, infer might have been used in a different sense than is correct now.
 
zooterkin said:
Since Tacitus was clearly not alive at the time of Pilate and Tiberius, for his account to have any significance, you would have to show that it was based on an independent source and not just what he was told by Christians (or by others who had got the story from Christians). Can you do that?
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amb said:
That goes for the Testimonium Flavius as well. He also wrote what was just tradition if it's not an outright interpolation.
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And almost everything we know about Alexander the Great (who conquered much of the known world) comes from historians who wrote around 350 years after his death. Sorry no CNN or newspapers back then.

On the other hand, as the book cited in post #1 points out, many atheists (who complain about lack of evidence regarding Christ) have no problem believing "as fact" that life came from non-life with no witnesses or even corroborating evidence unlike Christ's life.

And if the resurrected Christ appeared to you in the 1st century and said go into all the world and "preach" the gospel why would you even have the motivation to write things down for people who for the most part can't read anyway.
 
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kmortis said:
Here's what we'll do, Welshdean can write your biography, the good Pharaoh can illustrate it then just before the second edition comes out, I, being the editor, will put in a passage stating "his brother James, also called joobz, met him in the bar...". Thereby establishing your Messianic credit.
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Working in background . . .

:)
 
DOC said:
And almost everything we know about Alexander the Great (who conquered much of the known world) comes from historians who wrote around 350 years after his death. Sorry no CNN or newspapers back then.

On the other hand as the book cited in post #1 points out many atheists have no problem believing "as fact" that life came from non-life with no witnesses or even corroborating evidence unlike the Christ's life.

And if the resurrected Christ appeared to you in the 1st century and said go into all the world and "preach" the gospel why would you even have the motivation to write things down for people who for the most part can't read anyway.
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But there is ample evidence for Alex. The Great. There is precious little evidence for an historical Jesus.
 
DOC said:
And almost everything we know about Alexander the Great comes from historians who wrote around 350 years after his death. Sorry no CNN or newspapers back then.
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Balderdash.

And that's about as much time as I feel inclined to spend on that particular attempted derail.


DOC said:
On the other hand as the book cited in post #1 points out many atheists have no problem believing "as fact" that life came from non-life with no witnesses or even corroborating evidence unlike Christ's life.
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Why do you insist on continually trying to derail the thread with this garbage?


DOC said:
And if Christ appeared to you after his crucifixion and said go into all the world and "preach" the gospel why would you even have the motivation to write things down for people who for the most part can't read anyway.
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DOC, there's not even enough material in this to form the basis for a decent joke. It's unmitigated drivel.

Are you really going to attempt to carry on as though your ridiculous fairytale has been established as fact?

Really???
 
DOC said:
On the other hand as the book cited in post #1 points out many atheists have no problem believing "as fact" that life came from non-life with no witnesses or even corroborating evidence unlike the Christ's life.
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Current scientific knowledge shows that at the start of the universe conditions would not have supported life. There is currently life. Therefore at some point life has emerged from non-life. Fact.

Even creationists accept that life has come from non-life, although their belief also involves the spontaneous appearance from nothing of an unnecessary entity that is so complex and poweful that it can create the rest of the universe, which must be considered far more improbable than the emergence of primitive self-replicating systems. We know, for example, that certain non-living systems such as crystals are capable of replicating themselves.
 
DOC said:
And if the resurrected Christ appeared to you in the 1st century and said go into all the world and "preach" the gospel why would you even have the motivation to write things down for people who for the most part can't read anyway.
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This was so commonplace an occurence in the 1st century that it wasn't even worth writing down? I had no idea that zombies were so common in the ancient world.
 
DOC said:
And if the resurrected Christ appeared to you in the 1st century and said go into all the world and "preach" the gospel why would you even have the motivation to write things down for people who for the most part can't read anyway.
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Well,if you were crazy and thought that invisible magic people told you to do stuff, There's really not much of anything that you wouldn't do.
 
Paul of Tarsus was a grifter just like Joseph Smith.
He was one of many wondering around spouting the same crap.
 
joobz said:
Well,if you were crazy and thought that invisible magic people told you to do stuff, There's really not much of anything that you wouldn't do.
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Is it true that at that time in history mentally ill people were considered divinely inspired? Even if that was not commonly the case, there was no criteria to separate the raving lunatic from the prophet. Nowadays we mostly strive to avoid eye contact when we see them preaching on street corners.

I think this bears a lot on why the "age of miracles" has ended. Now we're more interested in medicating these people than accepting them as masters.
 
DOC said:
And almost everything we know about Alexander the Great (who conquered much of the known world) comes from historians who wrote around 350 years after his death. Sorry no CNN or newspapers back then.
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Perhaps you'd care to share your scholarly analysis of the histories of Alexander the Great, and how many primary sources they indicate? ETA: and do we have any contemporary images of Jesus, such as we have for Alexander?

Regardless, your comment completely misses my point; perhaps you could have another attempt at addressing it? What evidence is there that Tacitus was not simply relaying what he'd been told by the Christians themselves?
 
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DOC said:
Joobz you're spamming again. I've already responded to your servant9/slavery2 issue probably over 70 times. I'm not going to do it again.
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And every time you have failed to explain why beating your slaves were ok for Jesus but not for us.
 
Toke said:
And every time you have failed to explain why beating your slaves were ok for Jesus but not for us.
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And every time people (almost always joobz) who bring it up fail to mention that the servant (who was given some lashes as punishment) committed the crime of beating several men and beating several women.

ETA: That is deceptive in my opinion
 
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Well, much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given. God works in mysterious ways.
 
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